Some have argued that tourism research has evolved from a commer-cially driven agenda of ‘boosterism’, through adverse criticism of tour- ism’s social and environmental impacts, towards an informed empirical and theoretical basis and the widespread adoption of rigorous scien- tific research methods (Jafari, 1990,2003,2005). Such progressive, evo- lutionary accounts of phenomena may be criticised because of their implicit suggestion that something has become, over time, more sophisticated and better as a result. Nevertheless, a focus on the changes in and diversity of approaches to understanding tourism and, in particular, tourists’ behaviours, seems apposite in a time when the tourism industry is under extraordinary economic pressure.